[Project-fallujah] let us not lose perspective...

[robin&amparo]

Here follows a message by anti-ID campaign supporter Simon Moores, which 
  could go hand in hand with "The golden fish story" by Mozaz...

amparo


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The New Doublethink - Better Late than Never
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in 
one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” George Orwell - 
1984 George Orwell

“Over four million cameras” said the American presenter, with visible 
emphasis. “Britain”, he said, “has become the world’s leading 
surveillance society and thanks to plans from our own Department of 
Homeland Security (DoHS) for the wider introduction of closed-circuit 
television in our cities, we’ll be catching up quickly.”

In fact, the Americans, with an invisible menace to fight, are taking 
surveillance technology to their hearts. The head of the Washington 
project states”I don’t think there’s really a limit on the feeds [the 
system] can take”. Further, he wants ‘to build…. the capability to tap 
into not only video but databases and systems across the region’, and 
eventually moving into any number of schools, businesses and 
neighbourhoods.”

A friend of mine, who used to wear a trench coat and carry a copy of the 
Financial Times, told me, in early in 2001, “You only need to start 
worrying about government when it really starts to join-up and there’s 
no real evidence that it will be able to achieve the levels of 
integration and departmental cooperation you’re worrying about for a 
long time to come.”

That was before 911 which gave impetus to the concept of ‘joined-up’ 
government and urgency that it never had before. In the United States in 
particular, the arrival of the DoHS has given carte blanche to the 
concept of inter-agency information sharing and the introduction of 
biometric passports and observers are concerned by the arrival of the 
“No-fly “database which will hold the names of all “known” and 
“suspected” terrorists. “

“What happens”, asked the TV presenter, “if someone with a grudge 
against you adds your name to that list? You’ll be hauled-off an 
aircraft wherever you happen to be and with no appeal”. He didn’t 
mention the recent example of singer Yusef Islam (AKA Cat Stevens), who 
was recently diverted on his flight to Washington and promptly deported 
for the possession of dubious musical talent but it illustrates the 
power of databases that governments on both sides of the Atlantic are 
busily compiling and sharing in their search for potential terrorists. 
For Americans in particular, there is now the added risk that the United 
States now offers no easy distinction between active "enemy combatants", 
material supporters and the much larger class of radical opponents of 
government policy

Twenty years later than George Orwell predicted we can thank David 
Blunkett and George Bush for introducing a raft of well-intentioned 
technological measures, ostensibly aimed at protecting national security 
and which instead of guaranteeing democratic freedoms continue to help 
erode them. “Men”, said George Orwell, “are only as good as their 
technical development allows them to be” and technology is a willing 
partner in fuelling society’s fear of the unknown. As 2005 approaches 
and illustrated by the contents of the Queen’s speech, we are allowing 
ourselves to be drawn into the 1984 world of ‘Doublethink’, twenty years 
later than predicted. Where Orwell wrote, “Big Brother is watching you”, 
we should be asking where the intrusive presence of technology can be 
halted and whether in fact we have surrendered any right to say “No” to 
its growing place in our lives?

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